The title is a description of my old life...but these days I ramble on about widowhood, homeschooling, single parenting, adoption, special-needs parenting, & living a life I never planned for or expected - a life that God, thankfully, continues to strengthen & equip me for daily...

Thursday, May 14, 2009

My Week

A report on my week: Can I just say I am really looking forward to this weekend? Tomorrow afternoon Paul and the older boys are taking off for the Father/Son retreat up at camp in Ventura. They won't be back until around suppertime on Saturday. It would be fantastic if I didn't have Sam, but I guess I can deal with one toddler! He still takes naps, which is immensely helpful. And he can't talk back yet. Today I am going to stock up on junk food - Bunny Tracks ice-cream, salted roasted peanuts, chips, frozen pizza and crescent rolls, I'm thinking. Then tomorrow, after my chiropractic appointment I'll swing by Blockbuster and get a couple of movies I know Paul would never want to watch. I'd like to see "Baby Mama" with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. But I need to check the rating. I don't want anything R rated, even if it's only my eyes that will see it. Paul and the boys don't think anything is worth watching unless it involves high speed chases ( that's why they love Paul's Dukes of Hazzard collections), blood and high intrigue (why they watch 24). I like kissing and babies. I don't get to watch too many things I like!

Saturday I may paint the living room ceiling. It would be good to do that when there aren't that many people around. I have two graduation parties I am supposed to go to, but I'm not sure I'll have a vehicle. Paul is taking the good van because it has the hitch on it. We took insurance off his red van while we still have the old green one, that we had hoped to sell by now, but haven't. I suppose it's just as well. Paul went to move it the other day and it wouldn't start. So if he doesn't get that running tonight then I'll be without a vehicle, which is fine. He has been working on the kitchen ceiling all week and I'd rather have him put his time there than that van. I'm not so sure I'd want to drive it if it was recently dead, in case it died again, and he wouldn't be around to rescue me. If we did have an emergency, I could always drive the truck.

All right, so this week: I don't remember much about Monday. Tuesday, the boys softball games were rained out. I was absolutely delighted! You all know how I feel about those games! Yesterday I took Sam with me to Ben's therapy and allergy shots. I had to take him because he has developed several hard bumps on one of his palms and I wanted to get the nurse's opinion. She and another nurse decided they are some type of warts. Hopefully, they'll disappear soon. But that kid was a pistol there. I looked up from my magazine to see him climbing over the arms of the chairs. After I put a stop to that he decided he'd like to bang on the blinds. I stopped that. He immediately climbed back up to the blinds, turned around to see if I was watching and banged again. There was nobody around, so I smacked his hand, which did not please him. But it did keep him away from the blinds. I know I am supposed to be cherishing these toddler days, but there are some days I find myself praying for them to pass quickly!

Oh, I remember now what I did Monday - I rearranged the boys' bedroom and completely cleaned it. That was a big job! But I think it looks better now. And it's nice and neat! When we had Sam and had to move him upstairs I just kind of dumped his bed in the first available spot. With this rearranging it's more organized. I wish we could get that fooseball table out of there, but there is just no other place to put it. I need a basement!

Ben had a melt-down last night. It wasn't an anger melt-down, but a tearful one. This happened earlier this week, too. It was really unusual. The boys had listened to a tape on Daniel Boone for history. Apparently, the tape told of Daniel's baby dying. That really upset Ben and he was telling me about it afterwards and just burst into tears. Since empathy is definitely not his strong point (usually lacking all together) I was kind of pleased and thought, "Oh, the Namenda must be working!" But then I realized his response was really over the top and just not quite normal. He calmed down after awhile, especially when I told him that the baby went to Heaven. So last night at supper the boys were talking about camp and on the way to church Ben burst out wailing about how he was going to miss me while at camp. Now, he didn't get enough sleep the night before. He was up by 6am because he said he wanted to watch our street lights come on (???). I didn't care, as long as he let me go back to sleep (he awakened us at 6 to let us know his plans). This kid normally sleeps 12 hours. His bedtime isn't until 8:30 but every night between 7:30 and 8:00 he is trotting up the steps, headed for bed. And I do know that when he is tired, he gets weepy. I do the same thing. But Ben's is more like uncontrolled wailing, which is very startling if you're not used to it. So, I stayed in the van with him for a good 15 minutes until he was under control, I thought. But a half hour later they brought him up to me (I was in the nursery) and Ben was wailing again. I hate that! He's so loud and I needed to get him out of the building, pronto, before he disturbed everyone. But when I went to leave the nursery then Sam started crying! Oh well - he's got to grow up sometime. So I hustled Ben outside and he managed to tell me in between cries that one of the girls had been mean to him in Patch Club.

Now, we have had trouble with this particular family's kids before. They seem to pick on my boys a lot and Paul has about had it and is threatening to talk to the parents, I believe. I suppose it's necessary, although, knowing the parents, I have my doubts as to how effective any talking will be :( I hope I'm wrong on that. I'd prefer to avoid any confrontation, though. It's actually a good life lesson for my kids, I suppose, in how to handle not-so-nice people. But it still makes me want to pinch the offenders' little heads off! Had Ben not been overly tired and having a normal day, it's possible that this girl's meanness would not have affected him so much - I hope. So anyway, we went to the van and I just stayed in there with him until church was over. I am just really concerned now about camp. I know the boys get up early and stay up late and I'm afraid that Ben won't be able to handle that without melting down. Maybe I need to talk his counselor. Perhaps we could make arrangements that if Ben is showing signs of fatigue, Will could go ahead and take him back to the cabin and get him down for bed early. The only thing is that we usually don't know Ben is tired until he bursts out crying! Oh, I wish I could go, too! Loosening the tight bonds between the two of us as Ben grows up is going to be the hardest thing I ever do in my life, I think.

Today Ben seems fine, but has commented several times on this girl's nastiness to him. I keep giving him the Biblical answer of "turning the other cheek" while growling on the inside. Why is it human nature to pick on the weak? I have to leave here in a couple of hours to run some errands and take Ben to his class.

I got ahold of Will's football coach for next year. Whoa! Apparently high school football is different than junior high. He will have to be at the school from 6:30 - 8 three mornings a week all summer long weight lifting. I hope they don't have a problem with Will being gone for about 4 weeks total this summer! I sure hope I don't have to take him to the school at 6:30 in the morning! When I told the coach that Will is homeschooled he said, "Hmmm" - just like that. I hope that isn't a problem either!

Right this second Will is driving me nuts. He's so grown up most of the time. This morning he hooked the camper up to the van and drove around and backed into the driveway, perfectly, something I could never have done. But at this moment he is insisting that he be allowed to cut up perfectly good pairs of dress socks and/or his long john tops in order to complete his wrestling attire (he and David wrestle daily on the trampoline, emulating their WWE heroes. Two weeks ago Will took old linoleum, cut out large strips, and spray painted them to resemble trophy belts or something) I am objecting to the destruction of good clothing and he's getting frustrated. And I'm getting irritated because he keeps bringing socks out of my sock basket and asking if it is ok to cut this one up, all the while I am trying to blog about my week! I suggested he spray paint his arms if it's that important (please don't take me up on that!) but he's still intent on finding some socks without mates that he can use. At the same time he wants them to match, which I'm thinking is an impossibility with my missing mates basket of socks. Trust me, if he finds a pair, he's not getting them! I suppose this is another one of the things I need to cherish - not his desire to cut up our clothes -, but this half-boy, half-man stage. Soon he'll be completely a young man and my boy will be gone forever.

Well, I smell my chicken burning (I'm making supper in advance right now) and Ben is threatening to make his own lunch. David has to take a spelling test and Will is still pawing through the sock basket. Duty calls...

1 comment:

Sounds crazy and wonderful all at the same time. Job security for us mothers. I enjoyed catching up on your week since mine has been too chaotic to post or read much. I would certainly talk to Ben's counselor ahead of time about his need for sleep. One would think they could accomidate that need. Hope you enjoy your wonderful weekend with just the little one. And, what is bunny tracks ice cream?